After 47 years, two centuries-old silver candlesticks are back at the town hall in Groningen. They were stolen in the 1970s and remained missing until appraiser Benno Weinands found them at an auction in Germany.
Antique silver enthusiast Benno Weinands (43) was surprised when he saw the candlesticks at the auction. The asking price of the candlesticks was under four hundred euros when the bidding started. But he immediately realized that they are worth much more. “I bought them for a few thousand euros, but I would have done it for more.”
He saw the city hallmark and a letter on the edge that meant the year 1764 or 65, so he knew he could sell the candlesticks for more than 20,000 euros. “At that moment I thought: this would be a great way to go on holiday with the family,” he says.
‘I couldn’t sell them’
But then Weinands discovered that the municipality had not sold the candlesticks in 1976. They had been stolen from City Hall. He did not have to return the candlesticks. Officially the theft was time-barred. Yet he did it. “These candlesticks belong to the city of Groningen, then I cannot sell them, it is professional ethics.”
Egge Knol was a curator at the Groninger Museum for many years and calls it fortunate that the candlesticks found their home again in this way. “The thieves could also melt them down,” he says. “Then it would have only been silver and the value of the candlesticks would have fallen to less than four hundred euros.”
Permanent place?
Weinands returned the candlesticks to Mayor Koen Schuiling on Thursday. They will remain in the town hall for the foreseeable future. But it remains to be seen whether it will become the candlesticks’ permanent home. “We have to consult with the Groninger Museum where they will be permanently located. There were four candlesticks in total and the other two are in the museum,” says Schuiling.
Weinands is not left completely empty-handed. As a thank you, he received a tile from the mayor with the town hall depicted on it. But he thinks something else is even more special. “When I visit Groningen with my children later, I can tell them that their father found the candlesticks after all these years and gave them back.”
The theft on June 11, 1976
The silver candlesticks, together with a painting by Johan Rosiere, were stolen from the mayor’s office on Friday afternoon. Three paintings of former mayors were also taken from the council chamber. Later, the organization Kommando Nieuwe Kultuur sent a letter to Newspaper of the North in which she claimed the theft.
It stated that Mayor Buiter was the first victim and that they would use the candlesticks for the ‘commemoration of death’.